Goal: Get high-speed Internet in the middle of nowhere in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California

Geek: Homeowner Joe Britt, CTO, Danger

Challenge: Life off the beaten track has its drawbacks - like no cable or DSL. One day, Britt noticed antennas atop a nearby mountain. Turned out that one of them, operated by Etheric Networks, was a 15-megabit wireless Internet connection. Just one problem: no line of sight.

Solution: A neighbor 8 miles down the mountain subscribed to Etheric. So Britt put up anantenna aimed at the neighbor's house to establish a point-to-point radio link using the 5.7-GHz frequency, made available by the FCC for high-speed data connections. Etheric engineers tricked out the neighbor's setup with a second antenna and a receiver to relay the signal to Britt. Now he can IM before hiking over to borrow a cup of sugar.

Challenge: High-end electronics and high humidity don't mix. Fogel had to dehumidify the spa, but that led to another problem: Sucking away steamy air can create a lot of noise, which makes it hard to enjoy a peaceful soak or watch a movie.

Solution: A stainless steel cabinet hides the electronics but permits sound to escape from the seven-speaker system within. The cabinet's perforated doors are part of the ventilation system: Huge ducts behind the cabinet silently draw air out of the room, and vents hidden where the ceiling meets the wall shoot in dehumidified air. The system recirculates the air once per minute.

Price tag: $1 million

- J.F.

FRAG FEST

Goal: Create the ultimate, multiroom Halo habitat in Layton, Utah

Geek: Homeowner Michael Nebeker

Challenge: Transform an existing high-end home theater into a multiplayer arena for Xbox's Halo.

Solution: Nebeker added a fodder room (where the opposing team sits), as well as two HD LCD projectors, in-ceiling and surround speakers, and Clark Synthesis Tactile Transducers to the couches (so your posterior can feel those plasma rounds). Now he simply presses the button marked xbox on his touchpanel - a neon light in the window comes on, lights dim, curtains close, and a synthesized voice says, "Let the frag fest begin." The first 16 players who RSVP for the dusk-till-dawn Halo marathon get assigned seats and their own WAV file "taunts" for some synthesized trash talking.

Challenge: The clients wanted a premier home theater in their basement. Unfortunately, there was no basement (a small matter resolved by excavating an enormous hole beneath the house). But a city ordinance required that the new basement have windows. The resulting light and street noise would have disturbed the theater experience, and let's face it: If you're spending half a million bucks to watch movies at home, you don't want to hear the neighbor's dog barking.

Solution: Known for refusing work from Bill Gates because, he says, the tech titan wanted less-than-perfect sound, Yates proposed constructing a room within a room. The home theater features plywood walls insulated from any abutting walls. The floor is "insulated" with springs underneath. And the ceiling is shielded from the tiled ("clickity-clack") kitchen above with isolation devices embedded between the two levels. Result? A completely silent movie palace.

Challenge: This 4,000-square-foot dairy-barn conversion was already drafty - and the clients wanted the "gallery" look of concrete floors, which added to the chill. Typical electric radiant flooring would have meant a utility bill five times higher.

Solution: A water-based system cycles throughout the floor via polyethylene tubing that won't expand, contract, or crack under the 45 tons of concrete. A closed-loop setup recycles a blend of water and antifreeze. Thermostats in six heating zones monitor the floor, automatically adjusting temperature.

Challenge: A 5,000-gallon aquarium weighs 10,000 pounds empty, close to 60,000 pounds when filled. So the first problem was getting the empty tank into the home. Once there, the floor had to support the weight of the tank and the water. Then came the small matter of filtering 5,000 gallons of water: Nitrogen must be removed from the tank, the water must be aerated, and tap water must be purified and salted to resemble seawater.

Solution: A crane lifted the empty tank onto ice blocks. "Using torches, we melted the ice blocks to remove the crane straps and gently lower the tank into place," explains Hauser. A half-inch steel-reinforced subfloor rested on 10-inch I beams sunk in concrete to support the weight of the filled tank. And a 17- by 22-foot room was built below the tank to house the filtration systems and plumbing. There, a 500-gallon reservoir holds the overflow water from the tank, while three 10-foot-tall filtration systems remove toxins.